We all know that conspiracies, while an ever-increasing staple on screen and page, don't really exist in the real world of politics. Whenever anyone, whether a John Bircher or Michael Moore, shows us evidence of a conspiracy, all we need do is wait, and the theory will eventually collapse under the accumulating weight of counter evidence. (This seems not to be happening with those who believe that "9-11 was an inside job." But these political Quixotes have from the beginning swallowed such a palpable falsehood that they are already committed to living outside the world of facts, and therefore no amount of evidence to the contrary will sway their faith.)
Indeed, major political conspiracies in an open society are by definition almost impossible, since virtually anything threatens their establishment and maintenance. Anyone with knowledge of one, for instance, can make his fortune simply by giving an interview to the New York Times, so the centrifugal pressures will always overcome the centripetal and tear such a plot apart. For this reason, anyone who believes in conspiracies is perhaps moving around the bend, and it is therefore best not to hang around conspiracists if one wishes to be taken seriously as an analyst of a very complex world in which free agents are constantly making free decisions day by day, hour by hour.
And yet. No, I don't seriously mean to imply that there is a conspiracy afoot in the current Administration when it comes to North Africa, but I do mean to say that the attitude of the President is so difficult to understand that one is tempted not to untie the complex knot with careful reasoning but simply to cut through it with that sharp if old, rusted, overworked, and disreputable sword named "Conspiracy."
One notes, for instance, that virtually the minute trouble began in Egypt, the Administration was applying great moral susaion to aid the uprising and remove Mubarak; a year and a half before, however, when the trouble occurred in Iran, the President remained stubbornly, unconscionably silent. As he did for the first couple of weeks during the uprising in Libya, though he later claimed he did so in consideration for the safety of Americans trapped in that country. But this excuse was nothing more than a justification, since he was far more eager when it came to Egypt, though many more Americans reside there than in Libya. Is the President, then, in favor of popular uprisings and against dictatorships? No: else he would have voiced as much support for the Iranians and Libyans as for the Egyptians. Is he for dictators and opposed to human rights? No, for then he would have supported Mubarak in Egypt.
And here one can see why a conspiracy theorist might say: the President seems to be on the side of anyone opposed to the United States. Both Gadaffi and the regime in Iran are anti-American, and the President has been very reluctant to support those who would imperil those regimes. Mubarak, for all his imperfections, was much more favorably disposed to America than his counterparts in either Libya or Iran, and yet the President was eager for him to be gone, even though many analysts predicted that Egypt would as a result become anti-American. One could put this a number of ways. To wit--another common denominator in these three situations is these countries' relationships with Israel: for whatever reason, the President has been far more eager to replace Mubarak, who kept the peace with Israel for many years, than to put pressure on Gaddafi or the mullahs in Iran, all of whom vigorously oppose the existence of Israel. One could put it still another way: the Venezuelan lunatic Hugo Chavez, who is doing his best to destroy one of the most vibrant and beautiful countries in the Western hemisphere, was, like President Obama, enthusiastic in his support of the rebellion in Egypt but is much more favorably disposed to Gaddafi and to the Iranian regime.
Let me make clear that TMH regards conspiracy theories as the crack cocaine of political discourse, since they appear so attractive, are quickly addictive, destroy one's capacity for reason, and in the end, always succumb, with pain, to the messy circumambient reality of things. However, in the case of the current troubles one can sympathize with those who believe such fairy tales. As with the crack addict, I don't want to be one, but I can certainly understand how folks get hooked, and I can also sympathize with their plight. The current Administration, in other words, is by its amateurish and terribly counterproductive policies, inviting people to draw unthinkable conclusions. Thank goodness we have the Administration's words to the contrary, because their deeds certainly are confusing.
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Notate Bene
Just a brief observation that while almost two weeks ago in respect of the uprisings in the Middle East TMH adduced Jeane Kirkpatrick's distinction between totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, we note that just a couple of minutes ago on the panel segment of today's edition of Fox News Sunday, Juan Williams did the same. The essay in which Kirkpatrick makes that distinction is a touchstone--it is essential reading, not only for understanding foreign affairs but also for gaining insight into the different ways managers even in our own society behave. In short, it is an essay that offers a great deal of practical wisdom beyond the confines of its own explicit concerns.
And speaking of Juan Williams, let no more of my very conservative friends dismiss him as merely a left-wing schill. Although he is indeed very liberal, his assertion this morning that Wisconsin's Gov. Brown is making a very reasonable move vis-a-vis the unions in his state is a startling assertion for one of his political principles. If all public argument were conducted by people of his good faith (note: not necessarily of his political positions), then we would all be better off.
And speaking of Juan Williams, let no more of my very conservative friends dismiss him as merely a left-wing schill. Although he is indeed very liberal, his assertion this morning that Wisconsin's Gov. Brown is making a very reasonable move vis-a-vis the unions in his state is a startling assertion for one of his political principles. If all public argument were conducted by people of his good faith (note: not necessarily of his political positions), then we would all be better off.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sowing the Wind in Egypt
The general consensus this morning among the conservative commentators on Fox News Sunday ran counter to what we said here yesterday as soon as we learned that the Obama Administration is pushing for Mubarak to leave power in Egypt. Events today have shown those commentators to be far too optimistic and too kind to the Administration. Hillary Clinton made it clear this morning that the Administration not only wanted Mubarak out of power but that it had wanted him gone for some time; that statement, coupled with Vice President Biden's confident support for Mubarak just the other day, leads one to believe that the Administration has not until the past twenty-four hours coalesced around a response--which is worrisome in itself--and that its response is precisely the wrong one.
The Administration should be working to keep Mubarak in power and then, when things stabalize, press him to enact reforms slowly and surely. The current policy of encouraging him to leave will contribute to too rapid a change in Egypt without winning us any friends, since the demagogues that will surely attempt to fill the vaccum will try to gain power by attacking the United States anyway. It is axiomatic, from Syria to Iraq to Cuba to Venezuela: if one wants public prominence quickly, if one is in power and wishes to stay there, blame the United States for all problems and whip up sentiment against her. For this reason, TMH says again that the worst thing that can happen in Egypt at the moment is for Mubarak to leave power.
Now there is talk of the Muslim Brotherhood--whom we were told by the pundits this morning on Fox News Sunday were probably not going to be able to come to power--forming a transitional government now that (as everyone thinks) Mubarak is on his way out. Mubarak is no democrat, but he holds power for the old-fashioned motive of person gain; when the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power, it will hold power for rigidly ideological reasons. It will be on a mission from God, and for that reason, it will command the support of all the most strident elements in Egypt and beyond.
Much as I respect the commentators who spoke this morning, I fear that they are very wrong. I fear that the Administration's response is made fully in the knowledge that Egypt is not likely to bloom into a democracy (if so, why not celebrate President Bush's achievement in Iraq?) but may become another strict Muslim regime. Perhaps the Administration wishes to appease the forces arrayed against the liberal Western democracies, much as Jimmy Carter tried to appease the Soviets by never really doing much in response to their expansionism in the late 1970s.
Not only did such a foreign policy weaken the United States and her allies, it also led to the terrible suffering of many in nations whose fall to communism went unopposed (if not roundly encouraged: see Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe). If the Muslim Brotherhood should come to power in Egypt in part because President Obama has been too eager once again to bow to the radical mullahs east of Suez, we will have helped to condemn millions more to the type of life that Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes so tellingly about in her two memoirs.
Another example from the late 1970s that we would do well to heed is that of Jeane Kirkpatrick. It was she who wrote in her landmark essay "Dictatorships and Double Standards" that traditional totalitarian regimes rarely if ever reform themselves, while authoritarian regimes sometimes do. Hence Castro's Cuba is still a totalitarian hellhole, while Gen. Pinochet allowed during the 1980s the reforms that allowed Chile to become the most viable democracy and economy in Latin America (so free, in fact, that the Chilean courts have now announced that they will hold an inquiry into the death of the Communist Chilean President Salvador Allende, whom Pinochet overthrew in 1973).
If Kirkpatrick was right, it should give us pause: it should make us wonder whether it wouldn't in the long run be much easier for us--and much better for the people of Egypt--if we had an ally of the old, traditionally corrupt variety to work with in Cairo than a new ideologically rigid government. We might well be able to work with Mubarak, particularly if we have this week's unrest to point to as a powerful argument for reform. What leverage the Great Satan will have with the true believers who will condemn us as infidels and friends of the Zionists is anybody's guess.
The Administration should be working to keep Mubarak in power and then, when things stabalize, press him to enact reforms slowly and surely. The current policy of encouraging him to leave will contribute to too rapid a change in Egypt without winning us any friends, since the demagogues that will surely attempt to fill the vaccum will try to gain power by attacking the United States anyway. It is axiomatic, from Syria to Iraq to Cuba to Venezuela: if one wants public prominence quickly, if one is in power and wishes to stay there, blame the United States for all problems and whip up sentiment against her. For this reason, TMH says again that the worst thing that can happen in Egypt at the moment is for Mubarak to leave power.
Now there is talk of the Muslim Brotherhood--whom we were told by the pundits this morning on Fox News Sunday were probably not going to be able to come to power--forming a transitional government now that (as everyone thinks) Mubarak is on his way out. Mubarak is no democrat, but he holds power for the old-fashioned motive of person gain; when the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power, it will hold power for rigidly ideological reasons. It will be on a mission from God, and for that reason, it will command the support of all the most strident elements in Egypt and beyond.
Much as I respect the commentators who spoke this morning, I fear that they are very wrong. I fear that the Administration's response is made fully in the knowledge that Egypt is not likely to bloom into a democracy (if so, why not celebrate President Bush's achievement in Iraq?) but may become another strict Muslim regime. Perhaps the Administration wishes to appease the forces arrayed against the liberal Western democracies, much as Jimmy Carter tried to appease the Soviets by never really doing much in response to their expansionism in the late 1970s.
Not only did such a foreign policy weaken the United States and her allies, it also led to the terrible suffering of many in nations whose fall to communism went unopposed (if not roundly encouraged: see Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe). If the Muslim Brotherhood should come to power in Egypt in part because President Obama has been too eager once again to bow to the radical mullahs east of Suez, we will have helped to condemn millions more to the type of life that Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes so tellingly about in her two memoirs.
Another example from the late 1970s that we would do well to heed is that of Jeane Kirkpatrick. It was she who wrote in her landmark essay "Dictatorships and Double Standards" that traditional totalitarian regimes rarely if ever reform themselves, while authoritarian regimes sometimes do. Hence Castro's Cuba is still a totalitarian hellhole, while Gen. Pinochet allowed during the 1980s the reforms that allowed Chile to become the most viable democracy and economy in Latin America (so free, in fact, that the Chilean courts have now announced that they will hold an inquiry into the death of the Communist Chilean President Salvador Allende, whom Pinochet overthrew in 1973).
If Kirkpatrick was right, it should give us pause: it should make us wonder whether it wouldn't in the long run be much easier for us--and much better for the people of Egypt--if we had an ally of the old, traditionally corrupt variety to work with in Cairo than a new ideologically rigid government. We might well be able to work with Mubarak, particularly if we have this week's unrest to point to as a powerful argument for reform. What leverage the Great Satan will have with the true believers who will condemn us as infidels and friends of the Zionists is anybody's guess.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Egypt
About the rapidly cursive hand presently writing the history of Egypt, two observations.
The first is that if current reports are accurate, once again our President has shown himself entirely wrong in a crisis. If it is true that he threatened to suspend or seriously curtail foreign aid to Egypt if Hosni Mubarak responded with much force to the uprising, then President Obama is in some measure responsible for kicking the chair out from under the precariously situated leader. In a country which in the past two weeks has seen serious anti-Christian rioting on the part of Muslims, a country in which the Muslim Brotherhood is said to be ideologically powerful, that blow to Mubarak, possibly decisive, could have the effect of bringing a rigidly Islamic regime to power. If that happens, a very important ally of the United States--the one that controls the Suez Canal--becomes an enemy, and Israel will now contend not with a neutral country but a hostile power on its southern border.
The second is that TMH finds it very strange that President Obama, who could find no words of support for the those who rose two summers ago against the Iranian regime now seems to be aiding the protestors (revolutionaries?) in Egypt. The common thread seems to be that if the revolution might result in the institutionalization of Islamic extremism the President is for it, while if the revolution might threaten such a regime, he is opposed to it.
Finally (we at TMH can't count), one thinks back with less than equanimity to other revolutions. In history, these have not often been portents of good. They were for the best in Eastern Europe in 1989; other revolutions have been less reassuring. The French Revolution, the Russian, the Cuban, and the Iranian all ended with regimes far worse than those they replaced; only the American Revolution led to a happier situation, and as Burke argued, 1776 was not so much a revolution, a great change, as it was an attempt to restore the liberties that the colonists had held in the days of salutary neglect before the accession of George III. What is unfolding in Egypt now may be a good thing, but if historical example is statistically reliable, it is more likely to be very messy indeed. In the long term, Hegel (and Fukuyama) may be right. In the short term, this momentous change may not work out well for western democracy and for the United States, which is still the primary guarantor of peace and stability where it may still be found in this troubled world.
The first is that if current reports are accurate, once again our President has shown himself entirely wrong in a crisis. If it is true that he threatened to suspend or seriously curtail foreign aid to Egypt if Hosni Mubarak responded with much force to the uprising, then President Obama is in some measure responsible for kicking the chair out from under the precariously situated leader. In a country which in the past two weeks has seen serious anti-Christian rioting on the part of Muslims, a country in which the Muslim Brotherhood is said to be ideologically powerful, that blow to Mubarak, possibly decisive, could have the effect of bringing a rigidly Islamic regime to power. If that happens, a very important ally of the United States--the one that controls the Suez Canal--becomes an enemy, and Israel will now contend not with a neutral country but a hostile power on its southern border.
The second is that TMH finds it very strange that President Obama, who could find no words of support for the those who rose two summers ago against the Iranian regime now seems to be aiding the protestors (revolutionaries?) in Egypt. The common thread seems to be that if the revolution might result in the institutionalization of Islamic extremism the President is for it, while if the revolution might threaten such a regime, he is opposed to it.
Finally (we at TMH can't count), one thinks back with less than equanimity to other revolutions. In history, these have not often been portents of good. They were for the best in Eastern Europe in 1989; other revolutions have been less reassuring. The French Revolution, the Russian, the Cuban, and the Iranian all ended with regimes far worse than those they replaced; only the American Revolution led to a happier situation, and as Burke argued, 1776 was not so much a revolution, a great change, as it was an attempt to restore the liberties that the colonists had held in the days of salutary neglect before the accession of George III. What is unfolding in Egypt now may be a good thing, but if historical example is statistically reliable, it is more likely to be very messy indeed. In the long term, Hegel (and Fukuyama) may be right. In the short term, this momentous change may not work out well for western democracy and for the United States, which is still the primary guarantor of peace and stability where it may still be found in this troubled world.
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